Information literacy refers to the historically specific practices used for understanding and producing meaning in the informational environment.
The word "information" in this instance references certain objective conditions made possible by information and communication technologies ... technologies that created and sustain the informational environment, the "network," the "information society," etc. The word "information" in this instance is NOT referencing content but rather the environment being engaged. As it is being treated here, information literacy could not exist prior to the emergence of the information environment.
The word "literacy," as it relates to our definition, involves understanding meaning and the deliberate production of meaning. We decided that literacy is more than language, meaning one can speak a language without understanding meaning and being able to deploy the language, within a specific context, with purpose. During our idea session, we drew a distinction between stimulus and response and literacy. Literacy includes a pause, and it is the pause that opens up the opportunity for critical reflection, inquiry, and decision making. Understanding occurs within the pause. We also acknowledged that literacy refers to something different that the cognitive process of thinking. The act of thinking, I would suggest, is universal, meaning all human beings go through the same cognitive process in thinking. Literacy, however, is tied to context. One is literate in a specific context.
What is meant by literacy practices? While we did not come to a firm definition of "literacy practices," we did generate a set of questions for thinking about what constitutes a "literacy practice." For example:
- When is the practice appropriate?
- Who can participate? Whose voices are counted as authoritative?
- What is counted as an appropriate method for producing or understanding meaning?
We identified freedom as an end-in-view for acquiring literacy skills in any context. Literacy increases one's mastery over one's environment and expands the range of contexts in which one can act.
What we are talking about right now is a general definition of literacy in general and information literacy in particular. Education for literacy, literacy education, is a different conversation.
I was really quite pleased with this idea session. It was, for me, quite revealing. That being stated, we did note that we will likely go back and forth on this for some time, accepting and rejecting ideas multiple times :) I really like this blog post of yours because it does make the distinction between content-based information and environment-based information. I do know we are still at odds on our definition of information, but I do find it helpful to keep the content vs. the environment separate. I am most proud of the work we have done on literacy and the discussion of literacy practices. Looking at the questions we developed for constituting "literacy practices" are really interesting, particularly if you compare them with the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education by ACRL. Although they are somewhat comparable, I am happy that we did not use them as a means of creating our questions, because are different and will perhaps (in the future when better constructed) will help us build a framework from which to critique the current standards which, debatably, have some problems.
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